


Taking Chances

by Cari2812



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Fix-It, Mutual Pining, Resolved Sexual Tension, Romance, Scared little babies, Whiskey Scene, Yearning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:21:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26570593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cari2812/pseuds/Cari2812
Summary: **troubled blood spoilers ahead**"They couldn't move forward without knowing how it could be, if they wanted it."
Relationships: Robin Ellacott/Cormoran Strike
Comments: 14
Kudos: 86





	Taking Chances

**Author's Note:**

> Originally, this was going to be a songfic to Adele's 'All I Ask', hence the quotation. However, when I was writing it, it just became its own thing. The quote still fits though, so there it remains. This was the hardest thing to write, so I hope y'all like it!

_So why don’t we just play pretend_

_Like we’re not scared of what’s coming next_

_Or scared of having nothing left_

In the wake of their admission, they both became aware of the distinct sense that something had profoundly shifted, and neither knew how best to regain solid ground. Much like the aftermath of the disastrous dinner party not long prior, they had now been exposed to parts of one another they’d never expected to see. In the same way Cormoran had never predicted Robin would express such long-concealed pain, Robin had never thought she would be considered an important enough fixture of Cormoran’s life to be allowed to hear the thought processes behind his own past traumas. But knowing what they now knew, and the way they both silently regarded one another, the idea of having not shared those things for so long seemed absurd. Despite this, and cleansing though it was to admit the depths of their friendship at long last, they were both painfully and yet secretly aware that there was still so much _more._

Somewhat impulsively, he pulled himself up to stand with a masked effort, quietly rounding the desk to stand in front of her, his eyes not leaving her own. He gently and silently prised the whiskey glass from her hands and set it, with ice clinking, on the desk next to her. The noted trembling of her newly empty fingers served as a much-welcomed balm to soothe his own jangling nerves, reassuring him that he wasn’t the only terrified party. He covered those fingers with his own large hands, softly pulling on them in an invitation to stand with him. She went willingly, and though her heels were since kicked off, her height still allowed their eyes to match almost on a level, mere inches apart.

That voice in his head, the Cormoran who so valued his unproblematic solitude, was growing increasingly irate. Already, this threatened to ruin everything, and he knew that when drunken desire gave way to sober reality, he’d curse himself for being quite so wanton, so daring. Try as he might, however, he couldn’t supress that glimmer of reckless optimism, that other voice that suggested that maybe he _could_ be happy, and maybe she thought the same.

He peered at her livid bruises, darkening and swelling, and felt a fresh pang of guilt. He raised a shaky hand, impossibly tender, and traced the sore-looking skin around the big, blue-grey eyes that were fixed, with pupils blown, entirely on his own.

“I’m so fucking sorry,” he whispered hoarsely, and she shook her head with a soft smile. He’d already been forgiven. It hadn’t escaped him that he didn’t deserve this. He didn’t deserve his pathetically short temper to be continually forgiven by her time and again.

There were more things, things just like that, that he needed to say, buried somewhere deep down. He was good with words, he knew that. But somehow, right now, with so many voices in his head shouting different opinions, and so many feelings he struggled to identify, no words seemed capable of covering any of it. Stood here, a fully grown man looking down at her, he found himself stuttering just like that small boy in the too-small trousers all those years ago, self-conscious and scared, frightened of fresh rejection.

“Robin, I…I-” he began, his voice croaky. To his surprise, she lifted a steadying hand to his upper arm, silencing him at once.

“It’s okay,” she whispered, “you don’t need to talk,” she paused, flicking her eyes to the floor. When she dragged them back up, they were sparkling with unshed tears, “I know.”

Did she know? She wasn’t sure. In reality, she just didn’t want to hear the things she’d been keeping from her own self. Spoken words meant accountability, they held weight. If they didn’t say anything, they could kid themselves for a little while longer. If neither of them verbalised how they felt, if the words remained in their heads with their reciprocation unconfirmed, then maybe the consequences they were so terrified of, the emotional upheaval and the shattering of the job they both adored, wouldn’t come true. So she didn’t need the platitudes, the compliments, the sweet nothings. If she could be bold enough to assume that he felt the way she felt, then she already knew them all. Stood there that evening, she decided she could be so bold.

Their breaths were shallow, and Robin noted that she’d not yet removed her hand from Strike’s bicep just yet. In the comfortable darkness, with hearts racing, she wondered if the gesture was one performed to steady him or herself. Impossibly close, the list of remaining reasons to not take that final leap, as long as it was, seemed to have fluttered away in the wind. Unconsciously shuffling closer still, to a point where both shared the same whiskey-scented breaths, an errant teardrop formed and then fell on to Robin’s cheek, a symbol of all things left unsaid. In the rapidly disappearing light, Cormoran noticed this, the small display of feeling that meant so much, and reached up to swipe the moisture away with a thumb, gingerly tracing back and forth over the delicate skin he found there.

Foreheads touching now, she opened her mouth to speak.

“Well, I’m scared,” she breathed, letting out a tiny nervous laugh.

“Yeah,” he puffed out a breath, “Me too.”

And with that, they let go. They let go of the worry, of the agonising fear of awkward mornings after or ruined working partnerships, just for tonight. Because there would always _be_ a tomorrow whether he took a chance on changing that relationship or not, and standing here tonight, his inherent curiosity and his need to just _know_ took over. They couldn’t move forward without knowing how it could be, if they wanted it.

He slanted his lips over hers and revelled in the feeling of taking her breath away. She found her body responding long before her brain, reaching for his shoulders, his neck, his face. There was a shared and burning sense of urgency, that if this was all it was going to ever be, if they woke up tomorrow and never spoke of this again, then it needed to be memorable. It needed to be _perfect._

But it wasn’t perfect, not yet. Inexplicably they both knew that this couldn’t be where the night ended. They could kiss goodnight and go to their respective beds, chaste and proper, but there would forever remain a question mark, an unfulfilled longing, a half-solved mystery. Like a snowball bears the potential for an avalanche, a kiss could never be quite _enough._

After reluctantly breaking apart, in the now total darkness, a hand reached out for another. A decision was made.

When leading her by hand up the narrow stairway, his thoughts fluttered, curiously, to bed linen. He shook the thought from his mind, there were more pressing matters to attend to, as evidenced by the warm hand encased in his own and the anticipatory fire stoked deep in his belly.

Besides, he’d changed his sheets the night before. 


End file.
